http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_062707T.shtml

Paul Hawken: How to Stop Our Political and Economic Systems From Stealing Our Future
By Terrence McNally
AlterNet.org

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, discusses what he sees as the largest social movement in human history, and why that movement is so invisible to the media - and itself.

"It will be the stroke of midnight for the rest of our lives. It is too late for heroes. We need an accelerated intertwining of the over 1 million nonprofits and 100 million people who daily work for the preservation and restoration of life on earth.... The language of sustainability is about ideas that never end: growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation, a future without fear. A green movement fails unless there's a black-, brown-, and copper-colored movement, and that can only exist if the movement to change the world touches the needs and suffering of every single person on earth." - Worldchanging.org 12/26/06

Paul Hawken: Where is the root, not just who put it in the water? And, once you start pulling the string on the bag of either social or environmental issues, you find they all come from the same system.

The major source of corruption in the world is business - that's clear - and corruption is a major source of poverty in this world. Corruption destroys the rights of people and the ability of people to make their voices heard, and to secure what they deserve as citizens in any type of geographical entity.

Poverty drives population rates, population rates drive resource extraction and pressure on resources. Pressure on resources drives poverty. Poverty then drives migration to the cities, and that creates a big pool of low-income workers who are easily exploited in support of globalization. Globalization drives consumption, and consumption drives the use of carbon fuels. Carbon fuels drive climate change, climate change drives climate justice or injustice as the case may be. In other words, you start anywhere in the environmental and social justice movement and play it out, and you come full circle.